With
time before the next act, I had some time to look around the festival
site in more detail and grab some breakfast.Friday's acts came and went… Saturday was something quite special. For me, this was without doubt the best day of the weekend for sheer music quality. You had to be up early and on site by 10am to catch the lovely Catriona Macdonald holding a Fiddle Workshop class in the Club tent.
Appearing slightly late, dazed and bleary eyed after a late night session with her fellow Blazin' Fiddles band members, she proceeded to guide a class upwards of 20 eager fiddlers, young and old, through a beautiful Shetland fiddle tune. In perfect form, and totally captivating her students, she showed herself off to be a fantastic tutor. In tune with her audience, even when her audience was less in tune with her, at one point even enticing the audience members without an instrument into a sublime moment of Shetland Air Fiddle!
With
time before the next act, I had some time to look around the festival
site in more detail and grab some breakfast.
For the second year, the Adhoc Folknet café is proving a big hit, and a great place to chill out and grab a bite and a coffee. Fast becoming the unofficial crèche, the gleaming iMac's prove too much of a temptation, as most of the time the computers are occupied by kids searching for their favourite TV character or the Harry Potter craze.
Slightly
older kids prefer to ditch the geeky Internet image in favour
of conducting a medieval ceremony in front of onlookers, involving
fluorescent blow-up chairs and beer.
One band who you would've had a hard time trying to miss at this year's festival were the new, youthful and certainly energetic 422. With 4 official performances during the 4 days, and Saturday coinciding with the release of their debut album, cunningly titled "One", they were certainly given a large slice of the Cambridge 'pie'. For all their performances, they never appeared tired during any, and looked content as if they could have played all day long on Saturday.
422
appeared on the Radio 2 stage during the afternoon, and the line-up
for this stage ensured for many, that this was the only place
to be for the entire evening.
A less attractive prospect of Guy Clark and De Dannan on the Main Stage, was certainly overshadowed this night. A wonderful and enchanting performance by Odetta, who successfully managed to lift everyone's sprits, turning as she did, the 2 Stage into a cross between a celebration of folk, blues and gospel in a set that we all wished could last more than 45 minutes. As I watched, I just knew she would delight a larger audience again during her Sunday performance on the Main Stage.
Next up, Northern folk-rockers Tarras displayed an impressive change of pace. They did their job well, as although riding on being a hit at last year's festival, they appeared lost this year as the "transition" band of the evening. Placing Heaton & Rotheray after Odetta would have been a disaster, but expert placing of Tarras warmed the audience's ears and built up the expectation for the famous duo.
Paul Heaton (aka the mind behind The Beautiful South) and Dave Rotheray, were appearing here at Cambridge for the first time as a duo. During their allotted time, they managed to bang out several of the more popular songs which had the audience up and bopping, including Rotterdam (or Anywhere), One Last Lovesong and a fabulous rendition of Don't Marry Her.
Heaton seemed uneasy during the performance, never sure whether he should stand or sit to sing, at one point even asking advice from the audience. Some new songs got a cautious airing from their forthcoming album (as yet without a name). Most appeared bland in comparison to the old favourites though, and the audience was left wanting much more of these.
Last act of the night, Kepa Junkera, gave a storming and sometimes unbelievably percussive performance of Basque traditional music. Somehow, managing to drown out the noise created by Martyn Bennett's Hardland on the Main Stage, at one point, the mastery of the accordion playing had Martin Green (accordion player for Eliza Carthy) looking on in disbelief. Altogether a wonderful end to one of the best evening's entertainment on the Radio 2 Stage seen for many years.
